FKIUMAIiV. 1910 



a I. K A N T N O S IN BEE C U T. T U R E 



91 



c 



LJ 



HOW fast 

 sliall side 

 liners i ii 

 crease? W o 1 1 , 

 it 's this way. 1 f 

 you're keeping 

 bees for fun, 

 jjnd you can get 

 more fun out of 

 50 hives than 



out of 5, keep 50. But if 50 will worry and 

 crowd you, changing your fun into hard 

 work, stick to 5, or some happy number be- 

 tween. If, in addition to the pleasure of 

 caring for them, you are likewise interested, 

 as you should be, in seeing how much sur- 

 plus honey you can coax out of each colony, 

 and. how much profit each colony may be 

 made to yield, then do notice what C. E. 

 Fowler says on page 18, January Gleanings. 

 "I am, therefore, sending a photo showing 

 what a happy combination of locality, good 

 season, good queen, good hive, and good bee- 

 keeper can accomplish when only a few 

 colonies are kept. ' ' .And then please notice 

 the photo. There is a law, so I have heard, 

 operating in the business world, known as 

 the law of diminishing profits. Because five 

 hens (fed perhaps on table scraps) net their 

 owner five dollars, it is unwise to assume 

 that 5,000 hens will net 5,000 dollars. Be- 

 cause a side liner, working five colonies in- 

 tensely, thoroly, enthusiastically, gleans an 

 average of 100 pounds each, he is not in a 

 position to assume that he could get the 

 same average from 100 colonies. 



I know at least one side liner who has 

 increased too fast, and is, moreover, in dan- 

 ger of continuing to do so. Every year, 

 sin'^^e that particular little back yard has 

 had more than eight or ten colonies, there 

 has been a large per cent (a much too large 

 per cent) of non-producing hives. That cer- 

 tainly cuts the average badly. Better one 

 hive yielding surj^lus than a score that 

 give you naught. 



Of course, that 's a side-line view- There 

 are necessarily other angles of vision and 

 judgment. When it comes to doing it all 

 on a large scale, on.ly the great totals to be 

 considered, there is an intensive method, 

 and there is an extensive method. Without 

 doubt, it is largely a matter of tempera- 

 ment which is better suited to individual 

 beekeepers. But if it is a few hundred 

 pounds of honey you want, with the chance 

 of perhaps making a record, and plenty of 

 good fun doing it, with as small an invest- 

 ment as practicable, then the odds are that 

 your greatest satisfaction lies within the 

 limits of a few hives, very carefully kept. 

 And along this safe route lies good beekeep- 

 ing. 



* * * 



A Tennessee Side Liner. 



I want to tell you about Wm. Morris of 

 Hendersonville, Tenn., and his method of 

 wintering.' One Sunday last month we went 

 to visit him. The interurban took us a de- 

 lightful run from our county into his, giving 



Beekeeping as a Side Line 



1 



Grace Allen 



^=s^^^^^^^ 



us a glimpse of 

 the shacks and 

 stacks of the 

 largest powder 

 plant in the 

 world, rolling us 

 thru attractive 

 country and 

 past prosperous 

 farms. Then we 

 walked to Mr. Morris' place, dropped down 

 into a hollow just over the brow of a small 

 hill. Part of the residence is old, old, old — 

 no one knows, Mr. Morris says, just how 

 old, but it was built while that section was 

 part of North Carolina. ' We went into the 

 shop, a sturdy old log structure, with an im- 

 mense fireplace across one end. In contrast 

 to the delightfully quaint flavor of all this 

 was the modern outfitting of the shop — a 

 gasoline engine, rotary saws, sliding tables, 

 and various impressive things I hesitate 

 to describe or even mention lest I advertise 

 my own ignorance. You see Mr. Morris is a 

 practical woodworker, and he has made al- 

 most everything on the place except those 

 old buildings. My constant questioning, 

 "Well, did you make that too?" became 

 quite superfluous. He had apparently made 

 nearly everything around. 



It was in California, where he lived for 

 several years, that Mr. Morris got his first 

 experience in beekeeping. Being very en- 

 thusiastic about the work, which he studied 

 thoroly, he resolved, upon returning to 

 Tennessee, to try his hand at it here. When 

 we met him about five years ago, he had 

 thirty-odd colonies, amazingly tiered, in a 

 small city back yard. They were then 

 strictly a side line, to which he was utterly 

 devoted. Now that he is in the country, he 

 is approaching the one - hundred - colony 

 mark, in spite of the loss of last winter that 

 made him turn his attention so seriously to 

 the problem of wintering . He has recently 

 moved about 80 colonies a few miles away 

 to a sweet-clover area, and will set about 

 building up another home apiary in the 

 spring. 



Now about this Morris plan of wintering. 

 His colonies are in standard 10-frame hives. 

 In winter they are placed this way: at the 

 bottom a body of empty combs, with a 

 well-contracted entrance; over this, a rim- 

 med cover like an escape-board without the 

 escape, but with a round hole bored in each 

 forward corner; over this the brood-cham- 

 ber; then a little rack placed crosswise of 

 the frames to allow a runway under burlap; 

 then a tray of chafP, with burlap tacked 

 across the bottom-; and last of all the jacket. 

 This jacket is made of 1-inch material, 

 dressed to %, of a size to allow a %-inch 

 dead air space all around the hive. It slips 

 down over the chaff tray, over the precious 

 brood-chamber and about two inches down 

 on the body of empties, where it conies to 

 rest on a cleat (1 inch by 2, I think), that 

 goes all the way around this body, thus 

 effectually closing the air space. All pos- 



